This semester, think hard about your initiations. Do you ask people to do compromising or humiliating things? Do you pressure people to ingest alcohol or drugs? Do you sexualize people who are less powerful than you? Are your activities truly optional? Does everyone feel empowered when they say yes, and safe when they say no?

I want to belong.

But I don’t want to belong at the expense of other people. I don’t want to belong at the expense of myself.

I want to feel that thing I feel at a party about three drinks in, when every face is the face of someone who loves me, and every friend wants to make out. I want to feel that thing when my heart expands to squish my ribcage and every stupid Top-40 song sounds like senior prom.

I want to exist in that wild, wonderful space of collective imagination. And I want to know that my community will bring me safely home.

Reina A.E. Gattuso ‘15 is a joint literature and studies of women, gender, and sexuality concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.